Typhoon Spikes Cargo Traffic at Lumbia Airport
Mike Banos
July 24, 2006
Planners of the new airport planned for Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental can relax. It's not really the lack of cargo capacity in the aircraft now serving Lumbia airport which keep farmers from sending more of their produce by air or routed them to Davao airport because of its bigger and all-freight services as earlier reported.
It's plain and simple the weather.
"When the wet season starts and affects production and delivery of fruits and vegetables from Northern and Central Luzon, orders for Northern Mindanao growers start coming in from big buyers in Metro Manila, which remains the biggest market for our products," said Michael Joseph Ignacio, executive director of the Northern Mindanao Vegetable Association, Inc. (NorminVeggies).
"In fact, our shipments north virtually treble every time a typhoon hits Luzon because this affects production and delivery from these traditional production areas to Metro Manila, which remains the biggest market for fruits and vegetables in the country today."
Statistics compiled by the Air Transportation Office Area IX office at Bgy. Lumbia seem to bear this out. For the period 1999-2005, outgoing cargo from Lumbia airport averaged 5,385 metric tons (MT) per year, peaking at 6,103 MT in the year 2000 when 18 typhoons visited the country, and lowest at 5,025MT in 2002 which had the lowest number of typhoons (13) within this period.
That's because there's a direct relationship between the total tonnage of air freight and the weather : perishable vegetables and fruits make up 75 percent of outgoing cargo from Lumbia airport.
Case in point : Just last week, a news report said typhoon Florita left Benguet's Halsema Highway impassable, sending vegetable prices at the La Trinidad vegetable trading post skyrocketing when vegetable harvests from the province's farms failed to make it through.
The 84-km Halsema Highway is Benguet's main road network, linking the vegetable producing towns of Atok, Buguias, Mankayan, Kibungan and Tublay. This area supplies some 30 percent of the nation's total vegetable production with some 750,000 to 1.5 million kgs. of assorted vegetables passing through La Trinidad every day on their way to Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.
But so far, Ignacio said it remains a trader's market despite opportunities brought by the weather. Take carrots, for example. Carrots in Cagayan de Oro's biggest vegetable trading area at the Agora Market in Lapasan which usually sell for P8-10/kg hit P22-25 per kg over the weekend before settling to P18-20 per kg. by the middle of this week.
In La Trinidad, the prices of carrots zoomed from P13 to P60 a kg, according to Dominador Dongla, chief market inspector of the trading post.
"From this alone, you can see how traders capitalized on that P60/kg spike in Benguet to sell carrots at P80 in Divisoria and Balintawak over last weekend," Ignacio said. "That's at least a hefty 200 per cent margin for the Manila trader buying from Mindanao, even factoring in the additional freight cost."
In fact, vegetable shipments from Cagayan de Oro came to a head last Saturday when there was no outgoing boat trip to Manila and the commercial aircraft were unable to handle the overflow.
"I had to turn away one shipper who brought in two tons of carrots since we were already fully booked for the day," said Orly Merlow, Lumbia cargo supervisor of PEAC, the air freight division of Air Philippines.
If prices for some vegetables were driven upwards by the weather, it was also sending others the other way due to oversupply. Although demand for tomatoes remains strong, prices were being kept down by this year's bumper crop. Shipping companies report at least 95,000 crates were shipped north last week aboard every boat bound for Luzon.
While shipments headed north were rising, prices for tomatoes headed south. "Since the middle of June, tomato prices have gone down from P250 to only P80 per crate this week," Ignacio said.
Local producers have also given preference to the local markets and just make the Metro Manila and Luzon markets their second option.
"Even if Manila traders pay in cash, local producers prefer to sell locally since they can close a deal face-to-face with their buyers very quickly," Ignacio said. Just yesterday morning, we saw an association member come in with 200 kgs of sweet pepper from Bukidnon, close the deal with a walk-in buyer from Agora market, and leave with his cash in less than one hour.
So even if prices last week for the lowly chayote (locally called sayote) climbed to P20-23/kg in Benguet and even higher in Manila, there's not much shipment of this commodity going on from the Agora landing area in Lapasan.
"Prices per sack of sayote is usually P200 per 60-70 kg. sack, which has now risen to P400-500," Ignacio said. But there's not much out shipments going to Luzon since local farmers have already committed their produce beforehand to Mindanao buyers, he added.
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It's plain and simple the weather.
"When the wet season starts and affects production and delivery of fruits and vegetables from Northern and Central Luzon, orders for Northern Mindanao growers start coming in from big buyers in Metro Manila, which remains the biggest market for our products," said Michael Joseph Ignacio, executive director of the Northern Mindanao Vegetable Association, Inc. (NorminVeggies).
"In fact, our shipments north virtually treble every time a typhoon hits Luzon because this affects production and delivery from these traditional production areas to Metro Manila, which remains the biggest market for fruits and vegetables in the country today."
Statistics compiled by the Air Transportation Office Area IX office at Bgy. Lumbia seem to bear this out. For the period 1999-2005, outgoing cargo from Lumbia airport averaged 5,385 metric tons (MT) per year, peaking at 6,103 MT in the year 2000 when 18 typhoons visited the country, and lowest at 5,025MT in 2002 which had the lowest number of typhoons (13) within this period.
That's because there's a direct relationship between the total tonnage of air freight and the weather : perishable vegetables and fruits make up 75 percent of outgoing cargo from Lumbia airport.
Case in point : Just last week, a news report said typhoon Florita left Benguet's Halsema Highway impassable, sending vegetable prices at the La Trinidad vegetable trading post skyrocketing when vegetable harvests from the province's farms failed to make it through.
The 84-km Halsema Highway is Benguet's main road network, linking the vegetable producing towns of Atok, Buguias, Mankayan, Kibungan and Tublay. This area supplies some 30 percent of the nation's total vegetable production with some 750,000 to 1.5 million kgs. of assorted vegetables passing through La Trinidad every day on their way to Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon.
But so far, Ignacio said it remains a trader's market despite opportunities brought by the weather. Take carrots, for example. Carrots in Cagayan de Oro's biggest vegetable trading area at the Agora Market in Lapasan which usually sell for P8-10/kg hit P22-25 per kg over the weekend before settling to P18-20 per kg. by the middle of this week.
In La Trinidad, the prices of carrots zoomed from P13 to P60 a kg, according to Dominador Dongla, chief market inspector of the trading post.
"From this alone, you can see how traders capitalized on that P60/kg spike in Benguet to sell carrots at P80 in Divisoria and Balintawak over last weekend," Ignacio said. "That's at least a hefty 200 per cent margin for the Manila trader buying from Mindanao, even factoring in the additional freight cost."
In fact, vegetable shipments from Cagayan de Oro came to a head last Saturday when there was no outgoing boat trip to Manila and the commercial aircraft were unable to handle the overflow.
"I had to turn away one shipper who brought in two tons of carrots since we were already fully booked for the day," said Orly Merlow, Lumbia cargo supervisor of PEAC, the air freight division of Air Philippines.
If prices for some vegetables were driven upwards by the weather, it was also sending others the other way due to oversupply. Although demand for tomatoes remains strong, prices were being kept down by this year's bumper crop. Shipping companies report at least 95,000 crates were shipped north last week aboard every boat bound for Luzon.
While shipments headed north were rising, prices for tomatoes headed south. "Since the middle of June, tomato prices have gone down from P250 to only P80 per crate this week," Ignacio said.
Local producers have also given preference to the local markets and just make the Metro Manila and Luzon markets their second option.
"Even if Manila traders pay in cash, local producers prefer to sell locally since they can close a deal face-to-face with their buyers very quickly," Ignacio said. Just yesterday morning, we saw an association member come in with 200 kgs of sweet pepper from Bukidnon, close the deal with a walk-in buyer from Agora market, and leave with his cash in less than one hour.
So even if prices last week for the lowly chayote (locally called sayote) climbed to P20-23/kg in Benguet and even higher in Manila, there's not much shipment of this commodity going on from the Agora landing area in Lapasan.
"Prices per sack of sayote is usually P200 per 60-70 kg. sack, which has now risen to P400-500," Ignacio said. But there's not much out shipments going to Luzon since local farmers have already committed their produce beforehand to Mindanao buyers, he added.
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